The Potato Salad Mystery, part three

Adela rootled in the cutlery drawer, but her forks and spoons all lay dispiritedly in the still-clogged sink.
     “I hate my life,” she thought, turning back to the potato salad that she supposed the cleaning lady had left behind. It wheedled forth aioli and memories. Of a picnic spread on a chequered cloth on the Riviera, and a man feeding her fingerling potatoes with sandy, long-fingered hands and…
     Adela stopped short. “I've never had a boyfriend,” she thought crossly. “Let alone a cleaning lady.” Somehow, being near that salad was giving her memories of another life, better than her own.

Part one *  Part two